UPCOMING EVENTS
May 29 (Saturday): Annual Plant Sale from 8:30-Noon. Early bird sale on Friday May 28 from 6-7 pm.
May 30 (Sunday): Museum opens for the season-Covid dependent-on Sundays from 2-4
June 19 (Saturday): Midsummer Night’s Eve Cavendish Village Ghost Walk. Meet at the Museum at 8 pm.
July 31 (Saturday): 11th Annual Cavendish Town Wide Tag Sale. 9-2.
September 12 (Sunday): Annual Phineas Gage Walk & Talk, meet at the CHS Museum at 2 pm. Walk portion is about a mile and a half and includes a visit to the accident site.
BETWEEN TWO MILLSTONES: BOOK 2
In the Fall issue of the CHS newsletter, we included an excerpt from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s memoir Between Two Millstones, Book 2: Exile in America 1978-1994 which was recently translated into English.
CHS has received a generous donation from Pieter van Schaik: Having just completed reading Between Two [Millstones] I am eager to contribute to an effort to get local residents to actually read this book. His donation is meant to enable the CHS to acquire and distribute copies to interested individuals …and request each reader relay their thoughts about the book to you upon reading it so that the local feedback will become part of the historic record.
CHS has copies of the book to share with locals who wish to read it and comment on it. To obtain a copy, please call 802-226-7807, e-mail margocaulfield@icloud.com or mail PO Box 472, Cavendish VT 05142.
LEARNING FROM HISTORY: Characteristics of Epidemics/Pandemics
In less than twelve months, CHS has given three talks on pandemics/epidemics and written various articles for the newsletter (Cavendish & Vermont Flu Pandemic 1918, Summer 2020 edition) as well as at the CHS blog. Clearly it’s a timely topic.
During events like Covid-19, people become curious about the past in the hopes that it can explain the present and what the future might hold. With that in mind, below are characteristics that apply to epidemics/pandemics that started occurring about 10,000 years ago with the domestication of animals in Europe, Asia and Africa
"All of the great diseases from smallpox to measles to influenza ... [did not] exist in the Americas because they didn't have any domesticated animals. When the Europeans came over, it was as if all the deaths over the millennium caused by these diseases were compressed into 150 years in the Americas. The result was to wipe out between two-thirds and 90 percent of the people..It was the worst demographic disaster in history." Charles Mann 1491 1493:Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
This has happened before, yet all pandemics end at some point. As noted by Marcus Aurelius,—the same plot from beginning to end, the identical staging.
Every storm runs out of rain (Maya Angelou).
Pandemics/epidemics don't last forever but new ones will need to be faced.
The immediate reaction is Fear, which can result in panic-fight, flight, blame, despair, conspiracy theories, civil unrest and cruelty.
As much as possible, people flee where the outbreak is happening to a place perceived to be safer. This can help spread disease.
They also will “fight” in an effort to have some sense of control over a situation that is very much out of their control. The outbreaks of plague in Renaissance Europe sparked rumors of malicious plague spreaders, that ranged from high-ranking officers and doctors to the lowest levels of workers –cleaners, cartmen and gravediggers. They were singled out for a variety of reasons including self-interest and gain. Jews were blamed during various bouts of plague, resulting in full scale persecution.
In Vermont (VT) second home owners and tourists are frequently blamed for Covid. While the VT Department of Health demonstrated that the fall outbreak was due to Vermonters going out of state, contracting the virus and bringing it back to families, co-workers and social gatherings (Halloween parties), the comments persisted.
 |
| The Great Dying |
While the extremes seen in past epidemics/pandemics are not as pronounced during Covid, they are none the less at play. Without normal routines and jobs, dwindling finances, the mandates to “stay at home” and reduce travel, combined with fear and anxiety, people can act in ways they normally wouldn’t. The influx of calls to suicide hotlines, protests, riots-now occurring all over the world, and even “cancel culture,” are very much in line with how people respond during pandemics.
Those living on the margins are at risk: The reasons are varied but can include: inability to escape from where the pandemic is occurring; poor living conditions, including overcrowding and dense pack; more likely to have other health issues; malnutrition; no access to information due to language and literacy barriers; lack of access to health care; and discrimination. Women and children are particularly vulnerable to violence during times of quarantine and social isolation for a variety of reasons including the inability to temporarily escape abusive household members.
Women face heightened risk of exposure to Covid 19 as nearly two-thirds (64.4 percent) of frontline workers are women. Center for Economic & Policy Research April 2020 A VT State report finds women have been disproportionately affected. The economic downturn associated with the pandemic has also seen a uniquely large impact on women's financial stability and economic security. VT Commission on Women 6/29/20
Civil unrest occurs In the journal Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy 2020; 26(3):20200045 a review of protests and unrest around the time of 57 epidemics between the Black Death in the 1300s and the 1918 Flu Pandemic, found only four occasions where revolts were not clearly connected with the respective outbreaks. There is evidence to demonstrate that epidemics can disrupt civil society in three ways. Firstly, because policies to prevent the spread of disease can conflict with people's interest; secondly because the epidemic's impact on mortality and economic welfare can worsen inequality; and finally due to the psychological shock that can lead people to believe irrational narratives regarding the spread of disease, "which may result in social, racial discrimination and even xenophobia."
People act in their own interests/ Scammers & Misinformation abound along with Conspiracy Theories. In the most extreme situations, such as the Plague, surrounded by death and suffering, inevitably people begin to question the rules of law and morality.
During the 1918s, there were "anti-mask" meetings. When there was a polio outbreak in Vermont in 1917, and quarantine was ordered, a civil suit was filed by Community Chautauquas. Today there are groups who believe mask wearing is a civil liberties issue with little regard to public health.
The more risky the situation the more snake oil salesmen surface. With the Internet, they're having a field day. Causes, treatments, and cures are touted with no evidence to support their claims. Some websites are even selling vaccines. Many do not take the time to separate fact from fiction and untold damage is done by misinformation and the spreading of it via social media.
“Connecting the dots” is what humans do so we can understand our lives and how we live in the world. When we are scared, in a state of crisis, fear, uncertainty, or feel powerless-the perfect storm that a pandemic can create- we desperately try to make sense of things. In the attempt to make connections and see patterns, it’s not uncommon to string random and unrelated bits of information together and draw conclusions that not only aren’t correct, but can spin into conspiracy theories
Politics and Pandemics do more than start with P: They go hand in hand. Five minutes of reading or watching current news makes this all to obvious. The 1918 flu pandemic was the worst flu pandemic in recorded history, and it was likely exacerbated by a combination of censorship, skepticism and denial among warring nations. Thanks to the 1918 Sedition Act, which made it a crime to say anything the government perceived as harming the country or the war effort, many newspapers downplayed the risk of the flu as well as the extent of its spread.
As Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor, noted in the 2nd century Antonine Plague, however bad the physical disease surely was, one thing was even worse-the mental plague of corruption, vice and moral decay.
Patty Stern
The Heroes: It’s not surprising
that people are more concerned about the damaging effects of the pandemic
rather than the incredible contributions many are making. Our brains are wired
for a negative bias, as remembering threats to safety and well-being were key
to early human survival. That noted, the incredible sacrifices and efforts
being made by front line health care workers, grocery workers, community action
organizations and beyond is amazing. As Fred Rogers often noted during
difficult times, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my
mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people
who are helping.”
PVFD
Note: The
picture is of Patty Whittle Stern, a Proctorsville resident who is an ER nurse
at Mt. Ascutney Hospital. She posted a “selfie” showing the importance of taking
the next step of vaccination to help end the pandemic. Members of the
Proctorsville Volunteer Fire
Department, demonstrated how they continue to care
for themselves and community by showing their vaccination cards.
Health impacts won’t be known for decades. Research of people born during or just after the 1918 flu pandemic found that mothers who got sick in the first months of pregnancy, had babies who, 60 or 70 years later, were unusually likely to have diabetes; mothers afflicted at the end of pregnancy tended to bear children prone to kidney disease. The middle months were associated with heart disease. Another example is “shingles,” which you don’t develop unless you’ve had chicken pox at some point, often as a child.
On the plus side, descendants of plague survivors seem to carry a gene that made them more likely to be “non progressors”-don’t develop full blown disease- when they contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
The long term consequences of Covid won’t be known for years, but preliminary indications are that a subset of people continue to battle fatigue, shortness of breath, cough, joint and chest pain, as well as other symptoms, long after their initial illness. How long this will persist is unknown.
Change follows. The Antonine plague was the beginning of the fall of the Roman Empire while at the same time ushering in Christianity. The black death of the middle ages made the Renaissance possible. It also paved the way for literacy (all the clothes that were left could be turned into paper); a middle class (they needed a work force and the serfs demanded a living wage), and the beginning of the shift from the “old scholars” approach to medicine to empirical based evidence.
The flu of 1918 made major changes in the United States public health and strategies of masking, social distancing and lock downs are once again being used today to stop the spread of Covid.
The AIDS epidemic revolutionized health care, from new means of treatments for cancer and other diseases, to how the FDA fast tracks drugs and allowing compassionate use. It also ushered in the age of HIPAA and confidentiality.
The environment can also change. "The Great Dying of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas led to the abandonment of enough cleared land that the resulting terrestrial carbon uptake had a detectable impact on both atmospheric CO₂ and global surface air temperatures. " Quaternary Science Reviews March 2019. Colonization and deaths from pandemics resulted in the “Little Ice Age,”
We’re only at the beginning of how this pandemic will change our culture and society. The mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) are pioneering a new field of medicine that will result in new vaccines and treatments for diseases such as heart failure, Cystic Fibrosis, AIDS, and hepatitis. Telecommuting will continue to expand while education at all levels will change. The one thing we’ll miss, and we had a preview of it on Dec. 17 when four feet of snow dropped on Cavendish in a 24 hour period, are snow days. Remote learning is still possible in a snowstorm. Many are commenting about how they haven’t had a cold or flu since they’ve been masking, so it’s likely Americans will adopt the mask in much the same way other parts of the world have done.
No matter the situation-war, extreme loss, devastation, crisis-the number one response of is resiliency. This is true across the board for all cultures. It's wired into the human DNA. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t challenging, but people have endured a lot worse, and come through just fine minus the dire consequences predicted by headlines to the contrary.
From 1916-1920, the people of Cavendish had to endure, a polio epidemic, 2 different outbreaks of measles, and the worse flu in human history. Schools were periodically closed, and women who worked in the mills, and many did, had to try to make childcare accommodations as best they could. Some of the epidemics were so wide spread the Mills couldn’t operate, which meant lost wages. Death was a constant reminder of the seriousness of these diseases. Men were being called up to serve in WWI and to top it off there was a shortage of sugar, salt, coffee and coal, with the latter being the worse. Yet they continued on.
The
children were not scarred for life. Instead, they learned resiliency at an
early age, an important skill they would rely on as they would grow up to
become “the Greatest Generation,” by winning WWII.
BECOME A MEMBER, RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP, DONATE
If you have not joined the Cavendish Historical Society, need to renew your membership, and/or would like to be a volunteer, please complete the form below and sending a check, payable to CHS, to CHS, PO Box 472, Cavendish, VT 05142. All contributions are tax deductible.
Name: _______________________________________
Address: _______________________________________________
Phone Number: _____________________ E-Mail: ____________________________
Membership Level
__ Individual Member $10 __ Senior Member 65+ $5 __ Sustaining Member $500
__ Household Member $15 ___ Contributing Member $250
Volunteer
___ I would be interested in serving, as a volunteer .I would be interested in serving on the following committee(s):__ Program Planning __ Fundraising __ Building (Museum)
__Archives _ Budget –– Cemetery __ Carmine Guica Young Historians
Donations are always welcome and can be designated as follows:
__ For general purposes __ Young Historians __Publications
__ Archaeological Activities _ Museum & Archival __ Special Events
__ Rankin Fund __ Williams Fund __ Solzhenitsyn Project
__ Other (please specify) __ Cemetery Restoration __ Preservation Projects
No comments:
Post a Comment